Botulism

Abstract

In a previous report it was shown that the formation of toxin by the Bacillus Botulinus is not dependent upon the presence of animal protein in the culture medium, but that in purely vegetable medium it may be formed with almost equal facility. The report was based upon experiments in which beans and peas were used, but later experiments have shown that corn and apricots are also suitable for the development of the toxin. The importance of these observations has been emphasized by the fact that within a few months there have been three outbreaks of botulism with eight deaths in which the cause of the poisoning was the ingestion of home-canned beans, corn and apricots, respectively. In all cases a number of chickens became paralyzed and died after eating the remnants of the food which had been discarded. The virulence of the toxin was very great in all cases, that in the beans and corn being so great that the patients died after merely tasting the contents of jars in which the odor was unusual. Records of necropsy and of histologic examination of the tissues of the chickens are not available in the corn and apricot cases, but examination of the tissues from the patient and from the chickens which died after eating the beans revealed the characteristic thromboses which were first observed by Wilbur and Ophuls and which were reproduced experimentally by the author. From the contents of the crops and gizzards of the chickens which died after eating the beans and corn, an organism was recovered which is morphologically and culturally identical with the Bacillus Botulinus, and which produces a toxin by which the typical symptoms and the characteristic thrombosis may be reproduced in animals.